


Meet Him Again

by prouveyrac



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Reincarnation, it doesnt end in sadness eyyyyy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouveyrac/pseuds/prouveyrac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time I fell in love with him, both of us were destined for death. I fell because I made the mistake of testing the Gods. He fell because he was enraged at my death; he was blood thirsty.</p><p>The second time, I never met him.</p><p>I wish I was able to say that third time was the charm. But it wasn’t; he was in love with someone else. An attractive boy, better than I ever was. Though, whenever I did see the two together, he never looked happy.</p><p>The fourth time, I knew him, he didn’t know me.</p><p>The fifth time is right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Him Again

The first time I fell in love with him, both of us were destined for death. I fell because I made the mistake of testing the Gods. He fell because he was enraged at my death; he was blood thirsty.

The second time, I never met him.

I wish I was able to say that third time was the charm. But it wasn’t; he was in love with someone else. An attractive boy, better than I ever was. Though, whenever I did see the two together, he never looked happy.

The fourth time, I knew him, he didn’t know me.

The fifth time is right now.

The only reason I remember all of this is because he is right here, right in front of me. The memories come flooding back like the ocean, rippling into one another and changing constantly.

His hair was still bright, radiant as the sun, though shorter and more curlier than I remember. His skin olive, perfect, as I remember it being. He was still tall, still muscular. If I hadn’t known any better, I would say that he was still a descent of a god. The only thing that was different was that now his eyes were a deep blue. And he looked tired, it was impossible to ignore the dark circles under his eyes.

“ _Achilles_ ,” his name left my lips like a gasp.

My heart dropped and my stomach already started twisting into nausea when I saw the confusion in his eyes. He didn’t remember me. He didn’t last time and now he doesn’t again.

Then the all-too-familiar cat-like smile appeared on his lips. And before I knew it, Achilles was clinging onto me. My face was pressed into his shoulder; the familiar scent of pomegranates overwhelmed me. I wrapped my arms around Achilles and held him.

"You’re here," he was saying quickly. "You’re _her_ e. I remember you… oh my gosh I _remember_ you. The last time- last time it was brief, I was… I was with someone else. I think? And then… and then before that it was… Greece? We were both… princes, you were exiled. And then… Chiron? Yeah, Chiron and then the _war_ and you… you _can’t_ do what you did again!”

He was overwhelmed. I could hear it in his voice and in the quickness of his breathing. Over two-thousand years of memories have just come back to him.

I looked up at him, smiling. “Achilles, breathe,” I said softly, holding him tightly. “You’re here, and I’m here. And you know what?”

"What?" He asked, his voice low.

"It’s the year twenty-fourteen, and we’re in London. There’s no Greek wars for princes, and that means I… I won’t leave you like that again."

Achilles grinned and held me tight.

After that point, it was like rediscovering Achilles. We would go out on dates, spend nights talking in my apartment. He was different yet somehow the same person.

The first thing I found out about him was that we almost traded places from where we were centuries ago. I was now the son of a wealthy business owner, the one to take the company over, while Achilles was the son of an employee in a business not well known.

It was then that I learned why he always looked so tired. It was a storming night, a summer storm. Achilles had shown up at my door, soaked to the bone with a dripping bag over his shoulder.

"Can I come in?" He had asked softly, his blond hair sticking to his forehead.

"Yes, of course," I replied instantly and dragged him in. "What the hell happened?"

"I left out a small detail," he mumbled as I went to get him a towel.

"What?" I was concerned, of course I would be.

Then I found out that Achilles parents had disowned him, like my father had once. He said that they had called him a disgrace to the family name.

Achilles never told me why that night. I pretended not to notice the tears that had formed in his eyes.

That summer night, he stayed over. It was also the night we kissed for the first time.

Two weeks have passed since that night. Achilles now basically never leaves, I convince him to stay because no one should have to live on the streets, and he doesn’t object.

And I don’t think I have ever loved him more. We’re nineteen and finally our time together is not limited. I finally do not have the fear every morning that that day will be the day I lose him.

 _I love him. I am so in love with him._ I think this morning. I am nursing a cup of coffee, barely awake, and Achilles, the morning person he is, has already made breakfast and is currently bustling around the kitchen in a t-shirt (mine) and pajama pants. His hair is like a wild halo and he is humming a song we heard on the radio a day before.

"I love you," I say as he sits down.

His face immediately flushes and he grins. “I love you too,” he says, taking my free hand and rubbing his thumb over the top of it.

That day we didn’t leave the apartment; we had already fell into bed together that morning.

○○○

Sometimes there are dreams. When I was just a child, they would be random and sparse. A flash of gold hair here, a thousand ships there. They had never made sense. I was young, I didn’t care.

But now, they all make sense; they’re in more detail. I dream of veiled daughters and deceased sons of nobles. I see quartz caves and a golden lyre. I see glimpses of a woman and a beach.

And I dream of arrows and chariots. A long beach with grassy lands on the end. A towering wall, too tall for anyone to climb. A plague, a wedding sacrifice, a pyre.

I dream of a strong warrior with a spear standing directly over me.

I picture someone -Achilles, it’s Achilles- mourning. I picture him in a rage.

I picture him falling, a god’s arrow in his chest and a smile on his lips.

These dreams appear in my mind on this night.

I awake, gasping for air. My hands reach blindly in the dark for something, for him.

I’m almost in a full state of panic when I feel the bed shift and his hands gripping mine. He’s telling me something….

"Patroclus, _Patroclus_ , breathe,” his voice finally breaks through the clouds in my mind. He’s holding onto me and I onto him. “It’s okay, it was only a dream. You’re here, you’re okay.”

Suddenly, the want to cry out for him to never leave overwhelms me. It’s like a feeling that I have locked up for years is suddenly reaching to break out of me. I want to scream and tell him not to leave me again, to not go. I want to hold onto him and not let go.

But instead, I fall into his arms and quietly repeat, “Please don’t go” until we’re both sleeping again.

○○○

I love him. I love who he was centuries ago and I love who he is now. I have fallen in love with the same boy, but have also met him in an entirely different light.

I love how the sunlight always shines on him in the morning, as if someone is still trying to show his god-like qualities. I love how he sings along to all the songs on the radio in the car, how the windows are rolled down and his hair is blowing back and he looks so _free_. In our past life together, I was never able to see his face light up in delight because of a book or something on TV.

I love seeing him come back from runs with a grin on his face, saying that he had gone faster (and I don’t tire from hearing it, even if I do hear it a lot). I love his excitement for a Friday night party, and I love seeing him having fun (and if I am helping him through a hang over the next morning, I still don’t regret it).

I love seeing him on early Saturday mornings when he’s already awake and ready for the day, moving quickly and talking animatedly. And I love seeing him next to me on the couch on late Thursday nights, his head on my shoulder, either trying to make sense of my coursework or reading over the poetry I write.

I am so in love with him, more than I ever have been. This will be our life that we spend together. In this life time, nothing will tear us apart like fate has constantly been doing for the past years.

I will never leave him.

"You are half my soul," Achilles suddenly says one night. He has been reading over my poetry and I studying for a medical exam.

"As the poets say," I immediately add on, as if programmed into me.

Achilles grins. “And do you? Do you say that?”

I nod and press my lips against his. “The poets were always correct,” I say softly. “You are half my soul.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed the fic!!! find me on tumblr at witchachilles !!!


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